


Rocks (And Other Childhood Memories)

by iammyownqueen



Series: quarantine drabbles [3]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, His family cares, Spoilers for Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iammyownqueen/pseuds/iammyownqueen
Summary: Bart didn't have any toys growing up. The Allens try to make up for it.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Bart Allen, Barry Allen/Iris West, Bart Allen & Iris West, Bart Allen & Jay Garrick
Series: quarantine drabbles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680538
Comments: 10
Kudos: 109





	Rocks (And Other Childhood Memories)

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy my dudes

“Don’t forget Moo-Moo, He’s Dawn’s favorite. Oh, and Ducky Momo is Donnie’s favorite,” Iris explained in a rush. “They won’t go to sleep without them, and then they’ll be fussy all night. And don’t forget they’re bedtime is at seven thirty. Do  _ not _ let them stay up. That means getting them ready at seven.”

It was date night for his grandparents, and Bart could tell that they were stressed. Well,  _ Iris  _ was stressed. His grandfather on the other hand, was calm and collected at the prospect of leaving Bart alone with the twins for a few hours.

“There's food in the fridge, make sure to cut it up smaller than it is now. Oh, and the number for the restaurant we’ll be at is on the fridge. I know you have your cell phone, but just in case something happens to our phones-”

“Iris, he’ll be fine,” Barry said with his hands full of squirming toddlers. “Bart’s great with them! Besides, we’ll only be gone for a few hours.”

She sighed. “I know, I know. You’re right. I just worry sometimes,” she said.

Barry set the twins down. “You two be good for Bart, okay? We’ll be back before you know it.”

They said their goodbyes for the night and started towards the door, when Barry stepped on a stuffed dinosaur.

“CHOMPY!” Don screamed.

“Oh no,” Barry said sympathetically. He picked up chompy and dusted him off. “It’s okay, see? All better!”

He crouched down and presented it to Don, who ripped it out of his hands and hugged it tight to his chest.

“Chompy,” he said softly to himself.

Iris smirked. “I think Ducky Momo might have some competition.”

“I had a stuffed dinosaur once,” Barry said, smiling fondly. “His name was Diny the Dinosaur. He came with this children's book that me and my mom would read all the time when I was a kid.”

“For me it was a stuffed bear, who I creatively named ‘Angel Bear.’ I think I still have her tucked away somewhere,” Iris said fondly.

They were gonna do it.

“What about you Bart?”

...And there it was. He loved his family, but every once and awhile they forgot that he was from the apocalypse. 

He rubbed the back of his head stiffly, unsure of what to say without making them uber depressed.

“I had a rock once.” He decided that saying he had  _ something  _ was better than admitting that he never had any toys at all.

“You… had a rock,” Barry had gone pale. Iris looked like she wanted to be anywhere but in the room with him.

“I mean, I didn’t really  _ play _ with it? It was just sort of there in my pocket. I mean, it was illegal for slaves to own any possessions, so it was sort of fun to rebel, even if it was like, just a  _ rock _ .”

“You… had a rock,” Barry repeated, his expression staying pale and shocked.

“He had a rock,” Iris said, mirroring his face.

_ Why did he say that? He could have played it off. “Haha, do video games count?” Idiot. _

“I mean, it was a  _ nice _ rock.” He tried, and failed, to recover. “It was very smooth and round, and gray.”

His grandparents just looked at him with a blank stare.

He cleared his throat, hoping it would clear some of the tension. It didn’t.

“Don’t you guys have a reservation to make?” He asked, hoping they would clear out and leave him to look after the twins, without further embarrassing himself.

They still looked like kicked puppies.

“Look, guys,” he tried to reason. “Since I came to this time, I've never needed  _ anything.  _ You’ve made sure of that. Sure, maybe my childhood wasn’t the  _ best _ , but it’s so much better now that it hardly matters anyway. Besides, I’m kind of too old for stuffed animals and bedtime stories anyway.” He shrugged.

There was still no sound except for that of the twins softly playing with building blocks a few feet away.

They still didn’t move.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Really, go have fun on your date.”

They still hesitated.

“GO,” he said, pushing them out the door.

“Wait!” Iris said, finally snapping out of it. “I need my purse.”

Bart flashed the purse into her hands and gave them a final shove out the door. He sighed once they were gone.  _ Finally. _

He knew that they were worried, but there was no  _ reason  _ to be. He was  _ fine. _ He missed out on a lot of childhood stuff, but that was over now. Really, it was fine.

  
  


It was not fine. Barry and Iris arrived at the restaurant only  _ slightly _ later than they anticipated. The waiter handed out menus and water glasses, but Barry couldn’t force himself to even  _ think  _ about food, which for a speedster, was a big deal.

A rock. A. Rock. A.  _ Freaking. _ Rock.

Iris sipped her water, looking just as torn up as he felt. They spent a few minutes in silence, ignoring their menus. They stared silently at each other, but they were too lost in thought to acknowledge the other person's presence.

“Should we… leave?”

Iris pushed her water glass towards the middle of the table.

“Yes,” she said immediately.

Barry got out a ten dollar bill and wrote on a napkin for their waiter.

_ We decided to go someplace else, I’m sorry for the trouble! _

And then they left.

Once in the car, Iris pulled out her phone.

“Toy palace is still open,” she said, immediately pulling out of the parking space.

_ God, I love this woman, _ Barry thought.

“Wait,” he said. “Should we call Jay?”

“Absolutely,” she said, turning off the car radio.

  
  


Jay was not expecting a phone call tonight, especially from Barry, who was supposed to be on a date _.  _ They’d been trying to get out of the house for  _ ages, _ and were finally comfortable leaving Bart alone with the twins for an extended period of time.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your date?”

“Yes, no.  _ listen.”  _ He sounded slightly panicked and on edge.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Did you know that Bart’s never had  _ any  _ toys? Like  _ any. _ ”

“Oh?”

This fact did not come as a shock to Jay. He hadn’t thought about it, but it did fit into everything Bart had told them about his past. 

“He had a rock Jay. A  _ rock,  _ and he didn’t even _ play _ with it!”

“Oh my,” Jay said. “What exactly are you planning on doing?” Jay asked.

He loved Bart with all of his heart, but Bart was a little too old for stereotypical kids toys. He preferred to knit, or paint, or draw, or play video games. It was true that he often played with the twins’ toys, but that was the only way to hold their attention.

“We’re going toy shopping,” Iris said.

Ah, so he was on speaker phone.

“We’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes,” she said.

Then the line went dead.

So he was going toy shopping with Iris and Barry.

At first, Jay was worried. Bart was a  _ teenager.  _ Despite their best intentions, they may end up doing more harm than good.

But when he climbed into the car and heard the full story, his heart sank. He understood why Iris and Barry were as freaked out as they were. Having small kids of their own, they probably saw Bart being their age. It was hard to imagine the twins without toys. He tried to see Bart as a little tiny two year old with nothing to call his own except a single rock that he had to keep hidden.

That actually explained Bart’s  _ very _ extensive rock collection. It was an almost daily occurrence for Bart to find a rock or two that he liked and show them off eagerly.

“Look at this cool rock I found!” he would say with an unabashed grin.

The rocks were nothing special, just rocks, but Bart loved them nonetheless. Jay had grown tired of seeing what seemed like the same four rocks over and over, but he never let it show. If Bart had a hobby, even a strange hobby, who was he to break his heart?

Each of them were filled with a profound sense of duty when they arrived at the Toy Palace. They had talked in the car about the type of toys that Bart would like, and ones that he would use the most. When they were through, they got fast food, which nearly wiped out the entire restaurant. After eating, they went to Jay’s and arranged their toy hoard on Bart’s neatly made bed.

  
  


When Iris opened the door, she was greeted by a nearly silent house. The twins were put to bed and sleeping soundly, and Bart was knitting on the couch watching tv.

When he saw them, he jumped up to hug them.

“How was your date?” he asked eagerly.

“It was great!” Iris answered honestly. “Much better than I expected.”

Bart was relieved. They did look a lot better than they did when they left, and he was happy they had dropped the whole toy thing and were able to have a nice evening.

“How were they?” Barry asked.

“Not as terrible as normal, so that's something.” He grinned at them, and then yawned. They may have been better than normal, but they were still super powered toddlers.

“It's getting late,” Iris said. “Maybe you should start heading home.”

He agreed and hugged them both goodbye before running home to Jay.

Jay didn’t look like he had even moved in the few hours that Bart had been gone.

“How was it?” Jay asked.

Bart sighed, thinking back to the  _ rock _ incident.

“It could have gone better,” he admitted.

“Well, at least you can go to bed now.”

“Mh,” he replied tiredly.

“Good night Bart,” Jay said, hugging him, knowing full well that Bart would not be going to bed.

When Bart approached his door, he was already on edge. He normally kept his door wide open, why was it shut now?

Cautiously, he opened the door to his room. On his bed was  _ toys. _ So many toys. It didn’t make sense. How? And When?

Then Jay was standing behind him with a smug look on his face.

“How?” Bart asked.

He shrugged. “I guess we all thought it was time for Kid Flash to have a childhood of his own.”

Bart was speechless. He approached the bed slowly, as if everything was made of smoke, ready to be blown away by any sudden movement. There were so  _ many _ . Slime and kinetic sand, plastic nuts and bolts, nerf guns and marbles, and a  _ pet rock.  _ There was even a Kid Flash action figure, along with a stuffed dinosaur that looked an awful lot like Chompy, only it was pink instead of blue. And that was only the stuff he recognized.

“How?” he repeated at a whisper.

“Barry and Iris kidnapped me earlier to go shopping,” he admitted. “We had fun,” he said with a sheepish smile.

Bart couldn’t believe it. He hugged Chompy II to his chest as tears filled his eyes. He didn’t think it was that big a deal. He had never had anything like this, and he had already accepted that. He didn’t expect his family to disagree.

He looked at Jay and saw the proud look he held on his face. Bart raced to hug him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “I was just along for the ride.”

Bart nodded, before setting Chompy II back on the bed and racing out the door.

When he reached his grandparents house, he ran in, giving Iris a hug.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

Iris smiled. “You’re very welcome.”

They broke apart and he raced towards Barry.

“Thank you Gramps,” he said.

Barry hugged him back tightly.

“It was the least we could do,” he said.

It was getting late, and it was a school night. Bart knew he should be going to bed when he got home.

  
_ No, _ he thought, looking at his bed, which was still filled with his new toys. Sleep could wait. He had some toys to play with first.

**Author's Note:**

> My friend found the rock story to be very funny and sad at the same time, what about you guys?


End file.
